THE Kermode: the Art of Telling: Essays on Fiction (Cloth) - Hardcover

It is a matter of some moment when a distinguished and dispassionate critic such asFrank Kermode ... offers what he calls a 'recuperative' response to contemporary literary criticism ...Through a careful analysis of authors ranging from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to Joseph Conrad and writers of detective fiction, he demonstrates in this book what can be gained, and what discarded, from all the fury of contemporary criticism ... Here is a badly needed voice of reason. The middle ground of serious criticism has so far found its clearest, most wide-ranging advocate in Kermode; and his new book...is an important one - ecumenical, level acute.--Kirkus Reviews

Kermode assesses the revolutionary transformations in literary criticism over the last fifteen years and places them in historical perspective. Examining novels ranging in scope from a 1907 bestseller to the avant-garde works of various periods, he includes such writers as Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Michel Butor, and Thomas Pynchon.